A grand jury that had been called to consider the evidence in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation into possible meddling in the 2020 election by former President Donald Trump and his allies returned an indictment on Monday night.
At around 9 p.m. ET, the indictment was handed to Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney. Although the exact defendants and allegations were not immediately made public, there were a total of 10 indictments, as reported by NBC.
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Who is Robert McBurney?
Robert McBurney, a lawyer educated at Harvard, who was appointed by then-Georgia Republican Governor Nathan Deal in 2012, presided over the special grand jury that gathered evidence for the investigation.
In a landmark decision last month, McBurney rejected Trump’s request to throw out the evidence gathered by the special grand jury and to have Willis removed from overseeing the criminal investigation as a result of her public comments on the matter.
According to the Fulton County court website, McBurney previously held the positions of state prosecutor in Fulton County and federal prosecutor in the Northern District of Georgia.
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McBurney has presided over a number of important cases in addition to his involvement in the current probe. The Supreme Court later upheld Georgia’s ban on abortions beyond six weeks, but he overturned it anyway.
A family dispute involving the children of prominent civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was presided over by McBurney in 2014. The ownership and control of Dr. King’s Bible and Nobel Peace Prize were at the center of this legal dispute.
The main point of contention was Bernice King, Dr. King’s daughter, who was reluctant to give her brothers the goods. She insisted that the objects had significant symbolic and personal meaning for her and voiced worry that her brothers might want to sell them.
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The judge compared Bernice King’s hesitation to part with her father’s belongings to Coca-Cola’s reluctance to divulge the formula for its signature soda.